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Maklershed · Jul 31, 2017

Imp the Dimp · Jul 31, 2017

If you people had to choose a captivating book, which one out of these would you pick?

- American Gods
- East of Eden
- Snow Crash
- Ready Player One
- This Perfect Day (Ira Levin)
- Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

MrOogieBoogie · Jul 31, 2017

Imp the Dimp said:
If you people had to choose a captivating book, which one out of these would you pick?

- American Gods
- East of Eden
- Snow Crash
- Ready Player One
- This Perfect Day (Ira Levin)
- Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Haven't read any of those, but East of Eden is most appealing to me.

Maklershed · Jul 31, 2017

Kindle

The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo by Walter Lord

Paperback

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

AngmarsKing701 · Jul 31, 2017

Still working on Part 2 of To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams. Can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel for this re-read.

Zelenogorsk · Jul 31, 2017

Almost done with The Dark Tower

and then it's on to Michael J Sullivan's Rise of Empire

and also King's IT

Maklershed · Jul 31, 2017

It's just come to my attention today is the 30th, not the 31st. I'm a day early on this thread. Oops.

Zelenogorsk · Jul 31, 2017

Maklershed said:
It's just come to my attention today is the 30th, not the 31st. I'm a day early on this thread. Oops.

lol you had me double checking my calendar

Alcotholic · Jul 31, 2017

Imp the Dimp said:
If you people had to choose a captivating book, which one out of these would you pick?

- American Gods
- East of Eden
- Snow Crash
- Ready Player One
- This Perfect Day (Ira Levin)
- Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

American Gods and Snow Crash are great. You can't go wrong with those.
I'm reading Ready Player One right now. I'm enjoying it, but apparently many gaffers dont like it. So I might hold off on that for now.

Ratrat · Jul 31, 2017

Time travel!

Jombie · Jul 31, 2017

Finishing up A Clash of Kings.

4Tran · Jul 31, 2017

I've just finished Bu Bu Sheng Lin (Lotus Blooming at Every Step) by Yue Guan, and it's an amazing read. At some 3.5 million words, it's an extremely meaty novel taking place in early Song China. It has everything from war to romance to political intrigue to economics to revenge to diplomacy and more. So far it's my favorite Yue Guan novels because it's more adventurous than the other ones. Really great stuff but it's an enormous time commitment.

For a lighter read, I picked up Malicious Empress, a Romance novel by Qianshan Chake. Unlike Yue Guan's books, there are fan translators making it available to English readers. It's a second chance novel about an Empress who is betrayed by the people closest to her and dies. She wakes up as herself at 14-years old with the chance to take revenge on everyone who abused her. And while the book is technically a romance novel, it spends far more time on revenge and murder with a healthy dose of political intrigue. This is a surprisingly popular sub genre in Chinese literature, and Malicious Empress is itself a pretty good book.

For something along these lines, has anyone here read Guy Gavriel Kay's River of Stars? How does it compare to his Under Heaven? (And please don't say that it's about Yue Fei.)

Lil Boat · Jul 31, 2017

Imp the Dimp said:
If you people had to choose a captivating book, which one out of these would you pick?

- American Gods
- East of Eden
- Snow Crash
- Ready Player One
- This Perfect Day (Ira Levin)
- Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

East of Eden is my favorite Steinbeck novel, and one of the best books I've ever read.

HotHamBoy · Jul 31, 2017

On my Kindle Paperwhite:

Physical books:

And I'm listening to this OOP recording of Dune, been years since I read those books:

Imp the Dimp said:
If you people had to choose a captivating book, which one out of these would you pick?

- American Gods
- East of Eden
- Snow Crash
- Ready Player One
- This Perfect Day (Ira Levin)
- Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Of what I have read, Snow Crash. One of my favorite books.

aravuus · Jul 31, 2017

Still reading

A couple of pages short of a third of the way through and I gotta say, the last 20-30 pages have definitely gotten me interested again. I was planning on finishing chapter 5 (I think) last night before going to bed, but ended up reading for two hours lol.

Gonna try and finish it this week.

Merrydeath · Jul 31, 2017

Still reading while I got two more books left after this. Sword of destiny and lady of the lake

Lamel · Jul 31, 2017

.

Alcotholic · Jul 31, 2017

Merrydeath said:
Still reading while I got two more books left after this. Sword of destiny and lady of the lake

What do you think of it?
I finished The Last Wish last month and am looking to pick up Of Time Contempt, then start the trilogy of books.

Zerokku · Jul 31, 2017

So I'm starting a new position at work that will allow me to be able to listen to music/podcasts or audiobooks as I'm working, which will be new for me. The books on my to-read list right now is fairly extensive, but I'm curious which of these are worth going for in audiobook format vs. regular, especially since I know a lot of audiobooks are make it or break it by their narrator(s).

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Shogun by James Clavell
The Mirror Empire: Worldbreaker Saga 1 by Kameron Hurley
The Alloy of Law: A Mistborn Novel by Brandon Sanderson
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
Sabriel by Garth Nix
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Shadow of the Wind by Ruiz Zafón, Carlos
John Dies at the End by David Wong
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan
The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Imp the Dimp said:
If you people had to choose a captivating book, which one out of these would you pick?

- American Gods
- East of Eden
- Snow Crash
- Ready Player One
- This Perfect Day (Ira Levin)
- Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Snow Crash is one of my favorite novels of all time so I'll have to vote for that one.

jtb · Jul 31, 2017

Devil's Bargain by Joshua Green.

Green's a good reporter, but this is pretty shamelessly access-y and is written in the worst form of political access journalism speak: anonymously sourced omniscient narrative journalism.

Dec · Jul 31, 2017

Merrydeath said:
Still reading while I got two more books left after this. Sword of destiny and lady of the lake

Alcotholic said:
What do you think of it?
I finished The Last Wish last month and am looking to pick up Of Time Contempt, then start the trilogy of books.

There is a lot to look forward to later in that series!

rfield84 · Jul 31, 2017

I too am reading the Witcher books! Picked up The Last Wish a week ago, and am 3/4 of the way done. Will be ordering the next one on Amazon this week.

Tezzeractor · Jul 31, 2017

Just started reading that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, after seeing it mentioned in the thread about comparing official media to fan fiction. A friend of mine with a fetish for rational fiction spoke highly of it before, so I figured I'd read it.

I'm like eleven chapters in and enjoying it. Something about Harry proclaiming the scientific feats of Muggles, and pointing out the logical flaws of quiditch as a game makes me incredibly euphoric.

I'm reading the PDF version with Xodo, a free PDF viewer (and editor?) I found on the windows store. It has bookmarks and a dark mode.

Atraveller · Jul 31, 2017

Reading Curse of the Chalion

NIN90 · Jul 31, 2017

Finished The Child Thief by Dan Smith yesterday. Thoroughly enjoyed it, especially its brisk pace.

Now onto A Closed and Common Orbit

HotHamBoy · Jul 31, 2017

Merrydeath said:
Still reading while I got two more books left after this. Sword of destiny and lady of the lake

You know Sword of Destiny is the second book of short stories, after The Last Wish, and precedes the main saga, right?

I was big fan of those books, before i even played the games. The audiobooks are really good.

Ratrat · Jul 31, 2017

Alcotholic said:
What do you think of it?
I finished The Last Wish last month and am looking to pick up Of Time Contempt, then start the trilogy of books.

I was so excited after reading The Last Wish. But for me, the series just turns really awful after that, barring Sword of Destiny. It completely lost me with Lady of the Lake. Andrzej Sapkowski does not give a crap about structure or pacing. The books feel like fragments of a larger story with the focus moving all over the place. He should have just kept writing short stories in that world.
I do like the characters though.

aravuus · Jul 31, 2017

Yeah, the Witcher short stories were amazing. Everything that came after, though... Eh. Really didn't work for me.

thomaser · Jul 31, 2017

Nearly done with Proust's "Swann's Way", first volume of "In Search of Lost Time". I've really enjoyed it! Proust is amazing at digging out interesting observations and analyses about everything under the sun. And he goes deep in his characterizations... no stones are unturned. Sure, his sentences are often long and confusing, and have to be read four-five times before you get them, but it's not a big problem if you take your time. And why doesn't anyone talk about how funny Proust is? He made me laugh much more than Jane Austen did, that's for sure.

I'm looking forward to the rest of his books, but will space them out. One or two a year will suffice.

Mr-Joker · Jul 31, 2017

I was reading Alert by James Patterson at first it didn't grab me as I found the writing style to be shallow with the book filled with padding to make it seem longer.

I tried to push on hoping that it would improve and as a learning tool on this writing style, I only made it to chapter 20 before dropping it as I simply could not give a crap about the main character as I was given very little information about him.

So I picked out another book Kill Me If You Can also by the same author, so I was a little nervous going into this.

The prologue started off strong which seemed encouraging but it quickly went downhill as again the same writing in Alert reared its ugly head and at times it felt like I was reading a bad erotic novel, plus I didn't like the main character as I just found him to be boring so I dropped it around chapter 10.

Currently I am reading The Martian by Andy Weir and I am enjoying it a lot and I was hooked from the first chapter.

IlGialloMondadori · Jul 31, 2017

Just finished

Brawly Likes to Brawl · Jul 31, 2017

Or at least I would be reading it if Amazon didn't ship it late. I have Prime shipping and yet, since Friday, the only update I've gotten is that a shipping label was made.

Psychotic_Mantis · Jul 31, 2017

Just finished:

After years of picking it up and putting it down, I can say that I actually really enjoyed it. I liked all three novels in the Millennium trilogy. The Girl Who Played with Fire was probably my favorite. Definitely not easy to get into quickly and all of them probably could've been edited down.

Did anyone read the 4th book written by someone else entirely? I am torn on reading it. I can't decide if it should have been let alone and this is just a cash grab...or maybe the book is solid and well worth writing/reading.

Anyway, moving on to:

Always meant to read it...just never have. I have read JP multiple times and I am excited to finally read this one.

stenbumling · Jul 31, 2017

Woolfs writing is so beautiful, but not really feeling this one so far.

Creamium · Jul 31, 2017

Just started Tigana, friend recommended this to me. He reads a ton of fantasy and this stood out to him as one of the best he'd read in recent years. Read the first chapters and the writing's pretty good. Will definitely keep going.

Alcotholic · Jul 31, 2017

Ratrat said:
I was so excited after reading The Last Wish. But for me, the series just turns really awful after that, barring Sword of Destiny. It completely lost me with Lady of the Lake. Andrzej Sapkowski does not give a crap about structure or pacing. The books feel like fragments of a larger story with the focus moving all over the place. He should have just kept writing short stories in that world.
I do like the characters though.

Thanks. I'll keep Sword of Destiny on my list and read the others at a later date.

AngmarsKing701 · Jul 31, 2017

Creamium said:
Just started Tigana, friend recommended this to me. He reads a ton of fantasy and this stood out to him as one of the best he'd read in recent years. Read the first chapters and the writing's pretty good. Will definitely keep going.

Great book. If you like, I highly recommend Kay's A Song for Arbonne, among pretty much everything else he's written.

Also, for Reading-GAF, the 7th Entry in the Knight's Journal just went live!

mjc · Jul 31, 2017

I've had this on my kindle for ages, decided to finally read it. Only about half way through but it's entertaining.

4Tran · Jul 31, 2017

Creamium said:
Just started Tigana, friend recommended this to me. He reads a ton of fantasy and this stood out to him as one of the best he'd read in recent years. Read the first chapters and the writing's pretty good. Will definitely keep going.

Kay is honestly one of the best writers in fantasy. Tigana is his most famous book but I think that his best ones are Lions of Al-Rassan and Sailing to Sarantium / Lord of Emperors. Under Heaven is pretty decent too but it's not really a fantasy novel.

fakefaker · Aug 2, 2017

I had a great time reading A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee. It was a well done blend of historical fiction and murder mystery and hope the next upcoming book is just as good. Need some sci-fi in my diet so going with Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee.

Nappuccino · Aug 2, 2017

Reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Really kicking myself for thinking it was some long-form Chaucer story. I'm not a big fan of Chaucer or historical fiction (they always get bogged down in needless details . . . or at least the one's I've read). Anyway, The Handmaid's Tale is nothing like I had imagined. Instead it reads like the kind of fever dream Philip K. Dick might have had if here were more socially aware of what women experience. Paranoid and deeply unsettling--Granted, Atwood is a much better writer on a sentence level than PKD ever even tried to be. The book is full of wonderful language, the kind of stuff I strive for in my own writing. She makes it seem so easy.

I'm not far into the book, but I'm enjoying it much more than Never Let Me Go, which I understand is a little similar, thematically.

Shows what I get for judging a book by its cover (and title).

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but y'all need to read this.

MotionBlue · Aug 2, 2017

Really good, I'm hoping the next books keep my attention.

Story spoilers

Ha Lin death was unexpected and sad.

Alcotholic · Aug 2, 2017

Now That I've finished Ready Player One (Which was a fun, Pulp-y novel, but I was kinda disappointed with the epilogue) I'm going to start the Earthsea Anthology.

I found all the books for free on a stoop in Brooklyn some months ago and I've been holding onto them.
I read The Wizard of Earthsea years ago, but since its a short novel, I'm going to reread it. I really like LeGuin's writing style and how rhythmic it reads. It has a unique tempo to the sentence structure as if its a song or poem, but it's not.

A sample from the book:

She took him into her hut where she lived alone. She let no child enter there usually, and the children feared the place. It was low and dusky, windowless, fragrant with herbs that hung drying from the crosspole of the roof, mint and moly and thyme, yarrow and rushwash and paramal, kingsfoil, clovenfoot, tansy and bay.

Nappuccino said:
Reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I'm not far into the book, but I'm enjoying it much more than Never Let Me Go, which I understand is a little similar, thematically.

Shows what I get for judging a book by its cover (and title).

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but y'all need to read this.

Since I've started watching the show with my GF, I've been very interested in reading it. She has a copy of the book stored at her parents, so Ill get a chance soon. Glad to hear it compared to Never Let Me Go. I loved that book.

effzee · Aug 2, 2017

Creamium said:
Just started Tigana, friend recommended this to me. He reads a ton of fantasy and this stood out to him as one of the best he'd read in recent years. Read the first chapters and the writing's pretty good. Will definitely keep going.

Would this be a good entry point into fantasy reading?

4Tran · Aug 3, 2017

effzee said:
Would this be a good entry point into fantasy reading?

It's a good entry point in that it's a decent standalone book. But in a sense it's not that great because there aren't many fantasy novels that try to do what it does. Even Guy Gavriel Kay hasn't written anything like Tigana since then.

If you're just looking for good fantasy novel, something like Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion would be a better bet.

Haly · Aug 3, 2017

Draconian · Aug 3, 2017

Zerokku said:
So I'm starting a new position at work that will allow me to be able to listen to music/podcasts or audiobooks as I'm working, which will be new for me. The books on my to-read list right now is fairly extensive, but I'm curious which of these are worth going for in audiobook format vs. regular, especially since I know a lot of audiobooks are make it or break it by their narrator(s).

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Shogun by James Clavell
The Mirror Empire: Worldbreaker Saga 1 by Kameron Hurley
The Alloy of Law: A Mistborn Novel by Brandon Sanderson
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
Sabriel by Garth Nix
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Shadow of the Wind by Ruiz Zafón, Carlos
John Dies at the End by David Wong
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan
The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Snow Crash is one of my favorite novels of all time so I'll have to vote for that one.

I highly recommend Sabriel and The Shadow of the Wind on audio. Tim Curry does a fantastic job, and the other narrator is no slouch either.

Number45 · Aug 3, 2017

OK GAF, time to try again:

Jules · Aug 3, 2017

Just downloaded The Sinner after watching the first episode. Started it last night, so far so good.

BigBlueBanana · Aug 3, 2017

Creamium said:
Just started Tigana, friend recommended this to me. He reads a ton of fantasy and this stood out to him as one of the best he'd read in recent years. Read the first chapters and the writing's pretty good. Will definitely keep going.

It is one of my favorite books. Also look into The Lions of Al-Rassan by the same author.

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